Yon mentions some criteria that I neglected in my original writeup. Novelty is a characteristic that many find interesting and attractive, although it does not get a terribly high priority from me. The "completing a collection" element hardly enters into my decisions at all, as I am not of the classic collector type described by Yon and exemplified by Michael Wendorf, but an eclectic opportunist. Like Yon, all other things being equal I prefer something of a type not already in my collection unless it is much better than the one I own. For instance, the Yomud asmalyk in my original writeup was gobbled up eagerly despite the fact that I already owned an ashik gul Yomud asmalyk (and quite a good one, but not in the league of this one). I really love finding a piece that is aesthetically wonderful, with a price I can afford, that could reasonably be defended as being about as good as one of its type can get.

I believe there are a number of categories of collectors, and the specialist (Yon's classic collector type) and opportunist don't exhaust the possibilities.